There’s nothing quite as valuable for businesses as customer feedback. When you can see how people feel about your products, brand, website design, you can make smart decisions that keep potential customers invested in your company.
The key to using feedback to your advantage is putting what you learn about your audience into practice. Consumers appreciate businesses that go the extra mile and make changes based on their wants and needs.
But gathering feedback from customers isn’t always easy.
Today, we will show you several ways you can get more information from your customers by asking. To give you the best chance at gathering actionable data from your site visitors, you have to ask what they think at the right time. Strategically asking questions is essential for finding new ways to improve your business and impress customers. Using this strategy, you can directly grow your sales and traffic by gathering and responding to feedback.
Ready? Let’s get started!
After Buying a Product
One of the best opportunities you’ll have to gather feedback from your customers is after they complete an order on your website. If consumers like your company enough to pull out their credit cards, they obviously have strong opinions about your brand.
You can choose to send out a feedback form right away if you want to learn more about a customer’s experience on your checkout page or product catalog. You can use this information to fine-tune the shopping experience for future visitors.
It’s also possible to get targeted feedback on products or services. We suggest waiting a week or two after the user receives their product before sending out a review form. You want users to get the full experience before leaving a public review for others to see.
Despite the risky nature of this tactic, it can generate significant results for your business. For instance, asking consumers to leave reviews that go public can dramatically improve your sales. Research shows that adding a single product review to individual items can increase conversions by a breath-taking 270%!
During Cart Abandonment
Another excellent time to get users to leave feedback is when they are leaving your website without completing their order. There are several reasons a customer could leave your site, and you’ll never know why until you ask.
You know that the user has something going on and can’t complete their order. As a result, they might not have time to tell you exactly why they have to leave.
However, you can trigger a simple checkbox feedback form to pop up when a user is getting close to abandoning their cart. Ask them why they are leaving and include some common options. Next, have an optional box that asks them to sign up for your email list so you can stay in touch.
This seemingly small step is a great way to gather feedback from your customers. If most people say they left due to a complication with your checkout page, you can go in and make changes to ensure a seamless experience next time.
If you don’t want to use an on-site popup, you can also use a push notifications tool, such as PushEngage. Push notifications are another helpful way to reach customers during the exact moment they are thinking about leaving your site. Use this chance to learn about each customer’s journey and how you can create better experiences for future visitors.
While Engaging on Social Media
Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have over 3 billion users, so it’s a safe bet that you’ll find your target audience on these websites. However, finding potential customers is only half the battle. You have to consistently provide helpful content and posts if you want consumers to engage with your brand.
Once users start commenting, liking, and sharing your posts, you open up plenty of new opportunities to gather feedback. Here’s the thing; feedback doesn’t have to consist of a neatly organized contact form.
Instead, feedback can consist of snippets of things your audiences have said about your company on social media. You may have to take your own screenshots and take notes to keep everything in order, but the information within is equally helpful for growing your business.
We recommend engaging with your audience by naturally responding to what they say about your products, brand, or industry as a whole. If you start to notice consistent patterns in requests, issues, or compliments, you can add this information to your list of actionable feedback.
At the End of Your Blog Posts
If you’re like most companies, you have a blog that you use to keep consumers engaged with your content. You can do more than keep users entertained with your content marketing strategy. Some businesses use this opportunity to gather feedback from their customers.
Did you know that the average reader only spends 37 seconds reading a blog post? In other words, you have to give people a reason to stick around on your website after they click an article. You could add a comments section, which is great for encouraging engagement and getting users invested in your company.
But we suggest prefacing every blog comment section with a targeted question. For instance, if you have a gardening blog and decide to write a post on some of the hurdles people interested in this hobby face, it’s important to ask consumers about their experience.
So, at the end of the post, you may ask, “What’s the biggest problem you’ve faced as a gardener?” You can learn a lot about your customers and the issues they are facing by encouraging constructive conversations on your blog posts.
Occasionally Ask Through Email
Finally, we can’t talk about listening to your customers without mentioning email. Email marketing has a whopping 4,400% because it contains customers that genuinely care about your product or service.
Due to the commitment of these customers, you can bet that they will happily give you feedback if it means they get an improved experience in the long run. Send out feedback forms to your email subscribers based on the products they’ve purchased, how long they’ve been subscribed to your list, and their history of email engagement.
The best part about email surveys is you are free to ask about basically anything, providing you segment your users appropriately. You wouldn’t want to send out a feedback form about a product that a customer never purchased, right? Segmenting your audience ensures you can ask highly relevant questions, which gives you more opportunities to learn about your target audience.
Over to You
As you can see, there are plenty of opportunities to ask customers their opinion on your business. The most important thing to keep in mind is how each user interacted with your brand. Use this information to improve your website and product offerings for all consumer segments by gathering and using actionable customer feedback.